<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2017 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
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 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Torn seam',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/09/27.jpg" alt="Intricately-formed leaves" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		When I awoke, I checked my email as usual, but I was in a particularly tired state this morning, so I wasn&apos;t processing information quite correctly.
		I read something about upgrading to a paid version and a computer science course code was mentioned, so I thought that the interactive computer science lesson website was trying to get me to use their paid option, which I&apos;d previously read about on-site.
		Nope, that wasn&apos;t it though.
		The JavaScript-based website builder we were required to use in <span title="Web Programming 1">CS 2205</span> was trying to get me to upgrade to a paid hosting plan.
		Yeah.
		Right.
		Their service is painful to use and doesn&apos;t even create a functional website at the end of your labours.
		I&apos;m definitely not <strong>*paying*</strong> for their lousy system.
	</p>
	<p>
		I found a torn seam on my rainbow heart tee-shirt, in the armpit.
		I&apos;ll need to get a needle and thread to repair it when time allows.
		The shirt is a bit thin though, so I imagine it wasn&apos;t built to last.
		The $a[HIV] Alliance was giving them out in addition to $a[HIV] tests, so the costs there would add up.
		It&apos;s not too surprising that they chose cheaper, less-expensive materials for the shirts.
		Still, it&apos;s one of my favourite tops, so I&apos;d like to keep it in good repair as long as possible.
	</p>
	<p>
		I got the keys (one for my front door and one for the laundry room) to my mother after work.
		I didn&apos;t have time to stay and chat though, with coursework that needed to be completed.
		The Oregon Health Plan people seem to have passed me off to another organisation: Trillium.
		Trillium doesn&apos;t seem to have my correct address either, as the Oregon Health Plan people gave them the wrong address.
		So my mail from them is ending up at my mother&apos;s place.
		Again.
		I&apos;ll need to deal with that when I have time as well.
		Their website maliciously discriminates against $a[Tor] users though, so I&apos;ll have to go see an in-person clinic again to see if they can help me sort the address issue out.
	</p>
	<p>
		My <a href="/a/canary.txt">canary</a> still sings the tune of freedom and transparency.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		I dreamed that I&apos;d discovered a glitch in the computer system at work by accidentally triggering it.
		The glitch would replace the surname of whatever employee was logged in with the given name of whatever employee name was selected.
		I&apos;d lost my surname in the system!
		At first, I tried triggering it again to be sure I understood the glitch.
		Sure enough, my surname was once again changed, this time to the given name of a different coworker.
		I decided to try fixing my name by performing the glitch while my own name was selected, thinking at first I&apos;d be in the system as &quot;Yst Yst&quot;, but that that&apos;d be better than not having my own surname at all.
		Before I actually could do that though, I remembered it wouldn&apos;t work; due to the nature of the glitch, I&apos;d become &quot;Alex Alex&quot; instead.
		That was much less appealing, so I paused to consider what to do.
		At that point, I woke up.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		I finished up my discussion assignments:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			That middle ground that you mention is the Ello network that I mentioned.
			Ello is centralised, removing the complexity for users, but they don&apos;t sell your data (at least as far as I know).
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			By your definition, it sounds like Web forums and wikis would be considered to be social media.
			Do you consider these to be forms of social media as well?
		</p>
		<p>
			You&apos;re right about Facebook trying to collect as much data on as they can.
			It&apos;s outright creepy, and those that resist aren&apos;t even allowed to use that social network any more.
			I remember pre-Google YouTube as well.
			I used to have an account there, though I lost the password when my hard drive failed on me and I didn&apos;t have a backup, costing me my entire KeePassX password database.
			After Google took over, I couldn&apos;t get an account because Google demands telephone numbers for registration, and I don&apos;t have telephone service.
			It&apos;s just Google trying to squeeze that information out of us to better track us, and like Facebook, when we refuse to supply that information, Google refuses us service altogether.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			For some of us, it&apos;s frustrating when a company&apos;s entire Web presence consists of only social media accounts.
			It makes the company not look legitimate and it makes it very difficult to contact the company if we&apos;re unable to get an account on the social networks they employ.
			For example, I&apos;m not able to get an account on Facebook or Google+, so any company that&apos;s solely reachable via those channels is one I can&apos;t contact at all.
			Most such companies also have Twitter accounts, so I can reach them there, but Twitter&apos;s pretty locked down these days too.
			If I didn&apos;t have an old account from before Twiter regulations went toxic, I wouldn&apos;t be able to contact anyone via Twitter either.
			The big-name social media providers have allowed their regulations and procedures to become noxious
			A company shouldn&apos;t rely solely on service providers that not everyone even has access to; they lose customers such as myself that way.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Like you said, some of us care about privacy, and don&apos;t like social media for that reason.
			Also like you said, many companies have a social media presence these days.
			These two things go hand-in-hand though.
			It&apos;s fine for a company to engage in social media, and they draw in a lot of customers that way.
			However, they must be careful not to neglect their main website as well.
			For some of us, their social media accounts aren&apos;t reachable, so if a company uses social media with no other online presence to speak of, that company will lose many of the customers that don&apos;t use social media.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
